Lewis called these moments “signposts.”
They aren’t the destination; they simply point toward it.
And the destination, Lewis insists, is God Himself.

“Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

-C.S. Lewis

Joy Comes When We’re Not Chasing It

Lewis noticed that whenever he tried to chase joy, it vanished. The harder he reached for it, the further it slipped away. But when he stopped striving — when he was reading a book he loved, walking outside, or remembering something from childhood — joy appeared on its own.

He writes that joy can never be seized.
It can only be received.

This is because joy, in Lewis’s understanding, is not the object of our desire — it is the echo of it. Joy is not the thing we want; it is the thing that awakens our desire for the One we were made for.

Joy as a Glimpse Into Another World

One of Lewis’s most beautiful insights is that joy always points beyond itself. The moment of joy is never the end — it’s only the beginning. The feeling fades quickly, but the longing it stirs stays with us.

Lewis believed this longing is evidence that we were created for another world.
A world where joy is complete, whole, and unending.

He said that every moment of joy we experience on earth is like a whisper — a small reminder of our true home.

“All joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire.”

Where Joy Finds Us

Lewis admitted that joy often found him in simple places:

• A line of poetry
• A memory from childhood
• A moment in nature
• A sudden sense of gratitude
• The feeling of being loved

These moments were small, but they awakened something large inside him — a desire for God that nothing else could satisfy.

Joy is the Invitation, Not the Ending

To Lewis, joy was never the point.
God was the point.

Joy simply pulled back the curtain for a moment, letting us see that there is more — more beauty, more meaning, more love — than this world can contain.

Lewis teaches us that joy isn’t something we chase after.
It’s something we notice, receive, and allow to redirect our hearts toward God.

And when joy does come, even briefly, it carries the gentle reminder:

You were made for something greater.

Sources
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (1955)